


Become of Me

by Ruby_JW



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-15
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-08 20:44:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_JW/pseuds/Ruby_JW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is reeling from the return of Sherlock while the great detective desperately tries to cope with how his world has changed in his absence. Having learned what John means to him in his time away, how can Sherlock watch the only person he has dared to love being tied to another?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intro: A Haunting

 

 

_My very first voyage into Johnlockdom. Excited is an understatement._

 

* * *

 

_The sun is out_   
_the sky is blue_   
_there’s not a cloud_   
_to spoil the view_   
_but it’s raining . . ._   
_raining in my heart_

* * *

  
I like her.  
I believe that may be the second aspect that I despise most about all this.  
I scanned her like a source for a literary paper and came up with nothing to worry about.  
Nothing to dislike.  
She is, admittedly, an altogether charming woman – the kind I fancy that an ordinary man might get themselves in a bar brawl for when an unruly patron becomes too forward.  
She is worthy of that sort of adoration. She is warm. A talented cook. She is reasonable, empathetic, _affectionate_ – patient, even. Christ, I always believed that concept to be a myth.  
She is likeable.  
The one trait I have never seemed capable of attaining.  
  
For I am not an ordinary man, and as a scientist perceives one who attends church, I comprehend the draw – in this case to the woman. But I am wholly on the outside, unaffected, unconvinced – unsubscribed to those ideals, as commonplace as they are.  
I am an odd, unlikeable man.  
Isolated.  
  
She has those qualities I could never hope to attain, that I am incapable of providing. I cannot deny the bitterness this renders in me – and worst of all, as a first, guilt regarding my attitude toward another human being that is not John. She is special to John, and that is why I love her and hate her.  
I suppose I’ve no right to these emotions as it is.  
  
Truly, is it any wonder then that I should abandon those I love most in an effort to preserve them from the evils I am untying one bind at a time, and return to find the world I had left behind changed?  
Two years.  
What did I expect?  
In my arrogance, I anticipated that the world would go on pining away for my impossible return -- the world being John.  
I have never been one for utilizing the mind for such trivialities as socialization and the many responsibilities that accompany it. I understand human nature, yet have never catered to it. I have never yearned for socialization for my entire life.  
I do not call my mother on her birthdays. I have never had, nor desired, a girlfriend. I refuse to be on the receiving end of one’s wallet collection of putrid children's photos that are a result of said stereotypical, societally forced socializations with women.  
  
And yet when I found myself bound up in the undercarriage of a military shit hole at the mercy of Russia’s finest breed of torture, robbed of the basic right to sleep . . .  
I astounded myself with my own petty thoughts, which had grown to be nothing like the patterns of contemplation that I was accustomed to. There was nothing deductive or impressive about it. Rather pathetic, truthfully. It was as if tucked away somewhere in the mind machine that I have always plodded through life under the control of, a personality was struggling to be freed. A flea of sentimentality was crying out.  
All I could think to conjure in the walls of my mind as I was beaten to market meat was:  
I want to go home.  
I want to be in 221B Baker Street.  
I want to see John scowling in his armchair and hear him telling me I’m an arrogant arse.  
 **I want to go home.**  
And for whatever reason, the word ‘home’ and the feelings it evoked in me were inextricably linked to John. Every time I was struck – every moment I lost consciousness, there he was.  
  
I had never known fear like that before, as I had never been made to care for or value myself. As a matter of fact I have always made a solid effort of avoiding self-preservation as it can make my line of work quite difficult.  
Yet everything changed when I had seen John, had heard John that day in the cemetery. I knew what it would do to him if I never returned. I could not bear the thought.  
I did not want to die – and this is the most ludicrous part of it all.  
I did not want to die, because I could not stand the thought of John alone.  
I wanted to live, so that I might survive to let that venom of despair that I had witnessed consuming him that day at the cemetery. Ridiculous, is it not?  
I could not live with the thought of simply leaving him with that, after all he had done for me. To have been the colossal bastard I had always been, taking for granted the one true comrade I had ever made in my life, and leave his life run through with the idea that I had wanted to die; that our life together was insufficient. That I had abandoned him, and was never coming back.  
I knew then, in the madness that was my existence in captivity that it was time to go home.  
I could have never prepared for what awaited me there.  
I feel I may never truly go home again.

* * *

 

_The weatherman_   
_says “clear today”_   
_he doesn’t know_   
_you’ve gone away_   
_and it’s raining . . ._   
_raining in my heart_

* * *

  
  
I thought I had watched my best friend smash his head off the pavement.  
I had to claw numb through a crowd to lay my hands upon that dead thing.  
I knew he was dead, but he couldn’t be. _  
_He was Sherlock, and feeling him dead under the pinch of my fingers couldn’t happen.  
Not if I was going to keep being a human.  
But he did that to me.  
He jumped.  
He wrecked everything.  
I had to watch him go into the ground – know that the worms were going to feed on the only thing I had ever let myself **really** love -- and I could not bear it, I simply could not bear it.  
I didn’t just die when he died.  
That one part of myself that I’d won back since my theater of war.  
That person I was with him – that I had grown to respect -- died with him.  
What was left was that husk of a veteran.  
I was bitter; the begrudging survivor all over again.  
I had tried to salvage yet another life and felt the corpse left behind go cold in my hands.  
I was angry at him.  
I was desperate for him.  
  
 _How could he do that to me_?  
  
To make me stand there, make me watch him die.  
How the bloody hell do you do that to another human being?  
But that was just it, wasn’t it.  
That was always it.  
His allure and his curse.  
He wasn’t another human being.  
He was otherworldly. And he left me here in a world without him.  
Took the magic with him.  
He robbed me of his presence, and that was unforgivable.  
  
  
To see him again . . .  
  
  
made me want to kill him.  
To see him again meant -- _that this was all a rouse_ \--  
me watching him getting lowered into the cold fucking earth with such finality.  
My trophy of failure: that black slab of dead marble wearing his name, staring me down in a silent jeer day after day.    
It was all some sordid, complex prank of a psychopath. ( _High-functioning sociopath_.)  
Two years of living dead.  
Waking up at all hours with the image of that crowd parting; all the tides of crimson life force spilling out around his head – dead silence pinched between my thumb, index and middle finger and everything that silence meant. The quiet in the house -- the quiet in my life -- was deafening.   
  
Mary barely survived it with me in the beginning. I don’t know how.  
I know I didn’t.  
I don’t know how she found me, why she chose me. Why she never left in the morning.  
Why she literally pried me out of bed, fed me coffee, read me the paper.  
She pulled me outside, wincing from the sun. It got to the point where I could not help but start to laugh again. Laugh at the absurdity of it all; that this woman would take time out of her existence to play with such a broken, empty thing as me. Try to fix it even. She took it upon herself to give my very soul CPR – to breathe life back into my hollow dead insides.  
  
She forced me to participate in life again.  
She held me like a child when I was shaking and sweating and weeping.  
I had to be re-born.  
She patched me back together like shards of a smashed crystal vase.  
  
  
I was going to ask her to marry me, _right there_ , that night -- but suddenly my table was fucking haunted.  
  
  
And initially I genuinely thought, _this is a heart attack. You are having a heart attack right now._  
Dizzy. Sick like a boulder had just tore through my vitals. The room whirled about me in a mad frenzy.  
Because either this was it, I had finally lost that last bloody strand of sanity that I had been pinching on to like a crab in a hurricane, or the past two suffering years of my God damn life were a joke. And when I saw the expression on his face and the abrupt stammering that told me he was actually **there** being his socially awkward self, second guessing this ghastly abortion of an idea, I knew it was the latter.  
  
“ . . . didn’t mean to spring it on you like that, I know it could have given you a heart attack it probably  still will but in my defense it was very funny . . . ok so in great defense -- ”

“Oh no, you -- ”  
  
“Oh yes . . .”  
  
Voices became muffled under the roar in my ears – a deafening rage that was consuming me, molten and boiling through every appendage . . .  
  
“Oh my God, _oh my God_ do you have any idea what you did?!”  
  
Two years of mourning. Of trying to say goodbye to the only thing I could not stand to lose in the whole world.  
  
  
  
A fucking lark.  
  
  
  
“Ok John I . . . suddenly realizing I probably owe you some sort of an apology --”  
  
 **BANG.**  
  
“Alright just -- John, just-just keep it--”  
  
“ _Two years_. I thought – I thought -- you were dead. Hmm? Now you let me grieve. Hmm? How could you do that? **How**?”  
  
“Right. Before you do anything with any amount of aggression one question just, let me ask one question.”  
  
I don’t think it really mattered what he was going to say next. I knew it was only a matter of time before my hands were about his throat.  
  
“Are you really going to keep that?” He motioned to my moustache. My God damn moustache, of all things.   
  
I think I might have killed him myself right then and there if there hadn’t been so many penguins about. The bastard, the bastard, the selfish bastard.  
  
No **indeed** , Sherlock Holmes has never been one of us.  
He has no idea that the world keeps turning around him – that it is all not some great production with him as the lead starring role, where we all drop limp like puppets when he leaves the room.  
  
And there I was preparing – already partially having asked this woman to marry me in the worst way possible.  
  
Right under the nose of my fucking soul mate--  
  
my inconsiderate, selfish, bigoted soul mate --  
  
who just so happened to be freshly returned from the grave.

* * *

 

 

_More to come, if it tickles your fancy! ^_^  Any criticisms welcome._


	2. Old Habits

 

* * *

 

“John.”

Mary’s gentle voice broke the relative quiet of the room from the other side of the bed. It was fine; I had resigned myself to staring at the ceiling as it was.

“Mmm.” I felt her shuffling next to me, rolling over to face me attentively. She was watching my face for a reaction.

“You need to let up, you know. Give him some slack.”

I went terse as a board, a harsh twist of scowl contorting my face.

“Oh he needs some slack, does he now?”

“John . . .”

“No, please enlighten me. In what sane world does a man get to fake his own death and get off scott free?”

“I don’t expect you to forgive him, just – talk to him. At least go on a case with him. Just one.”  
  
“I have a wedding to plan.”

“And you can! But for God’s sake, I mean – he’s back here now, you can see he’s trying. Besides, how are you going to plan a wedding without a best man?”

I turned to face her fully, the magnitude of my spite fully apparent on my face.

“Best man? He ruined me. He absolutely devastated me for **two, years**.”

“Have you ever stopped to think for even one moment what he had to endure while he was away, or why he was gone?”

“Absolutely not. I could have been with him. Whatever it was, I could have helped. He chose to abandon me.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a choice.” She frowned, and I let out a scoffing laugh. “John . . . you’re abandoning him _now_.”

“WHAT?” I barked indignantly, thumping the plush comforter with my fist. “Am I hearing this right now? Were you not there this past year, I mean have you entirely lost grip on reality?”

“He’s lonely, John. And he’s got nobody but that landlady.” That took the wind right out of my sails. I thought about him over the past month, sitting there in that apartment, riddled with memories, that deafening quiet. I resented how my heart pinched with sadness at the thought of him pouring over cases, or playing violin to fill up the emptiness in the space.

“He’s got his brother . . .” I mumbled pathetically. She glared at me with a rueful grin.

“Seriously? He hates him.”

“He does not!”

“He might as well.”

“Mycroft loves Sherlock.” I said stubbornly.

“Sherlock doesn’t want Mycroft. He wants you. You’re the only person he really likes, you know.”

“And when did you become an expert?”

“Really John, it’s quite obvious. Most people he’s relieved to direct toward the door. Oh, you should see him when you go to leave. Please talk to him.”

I sunk down until the sheets revealed only my eyes and forehead, biting my lip hard as I felt my eyes begin to sting. So it was not just my own petty imaginings. That expression Sherlock wore every time I put on my coat to leave 221B Baker Street lately; it seemed barely tangible to me, and I thought it took knowing his usual face to see the minute differences. It was the eyes that gave him away. That of a wounded dog who has just spent all day waiting at the door for you, only to have you pop in and race back out.

 _He’s lonely, John_.

I dared not blink, for a shimmering build up was scalding my eyes, and I rolled to present my back to her in an effort to shield my embarrassing emotion.

“I shall see him tomorrow. I need a best man.”

She shuffled forward and placed a kiss on my shoulder.

“There’s a good boy.” She giggled, settling down to sleep – but I could only watch the blurred red digits of the alarm clock, my mind racing off on innumerable tangents.

 

* * *

 

_I tell my blues_   
_they mustn’t show_   
_but soon these tears_   
_are bound to flow_   
_‘cause it’s raining . . ._   
_raining in my heart_

* * *

  
I had no reason to be anxious outside the obvious -- I knew John was coming over.   
He had called; made sure I would be home – which I have found to be exceptionally hysterical, insinuating that I have some well-formed structure of social life.  
Pacing in the kitchen so hard I might leave footprints.  
 _Tea. Tea. I need tea_ – it’ll keep my mind busy.  
And for the sparse minutes it occupied my time, it worked.  
But now it sat losing steam, and I paced more frantically, mulling.  
He’s coming over.  
Alone.  
  
 _Are you going to talk to him?_  
 _Deal with the elephant in the room?  
Which elephant in the room?  
_  
 _There are so many. Where to begin?_  
  
 _I’m an asshole, but I miss you. I abandoned you, but I had to. Could you perhaps, maybe – please kindly not get married? At all. And move back in with me?_

_I have been alone my entire life and have enjoyed it immensely up until you came and spoiled it. I had a good thing going. I used to like my own company. Now I don’t like who I am without you. Could you come back, please, and maybe leave your fiancée at the door? I think I kind of love you, if that’s what this is -- I’m no expert . . .but I believe I am capable of it with you, and certainly no one else –_

A riot of squawking dismantled my panicked thoughts, and I was particularly grateful as it was getting quite off the rails for a moment there if I must admit. I had caught myself thinking that way frequently over the past month and it was growing quite arduous to be alone with myself – never mind attempting to tackle cases with such nonsense cluttering my mind palace. It wasn’t safe in there anymore. He was there around every corner, waiting to spring himself upon me at any given moment. My begrudging mantra that had formed in Russia: _John, John, John._

I could hear him mumbling and moving about downstairs and I felt my heart rate elevate.

_Right. Pretend you are participating in a relevant event entirely unrelated to the anticipation of his visit._

I scrambled to my fridge, taking out the jar of evidence and uncapping it upon the table. I let my fingers search along the counter top, acquiring the goggles and snapping them on swiftly. I flicked on the torch on the table in hopes of conjuring an entirely fabricated scenario of having been caught in the middle of something important.  
 _  
Really, Sherlock. You are growing to be entirely too sentimental and unregimented._

The door came open and I struggled to gain control over my pulse, which leapt at his visage. _  
_

"What’s that noise downstairs?!" I demanded, feigning casual as I secretly relished the taken aback expression that momentarily flashed across his features. Then I suppose he realized who he was dealing with and resumed his quiescent demeanor.  
 _  
_"That was Mrs. Hudson laughing." He replied, eyeing my make-believe work suspiciously.

"I thought she was torturing an owl."

"Yeah, it was laughter."

"Could’ve been both."

"…Busy?" John asked wearily, taking in the whole scene. Scratch previous plan. He might not be buying it. No elephant revelations. Pride is in distinct danger of being scathed.

“Just occupying myself sometimes, just oh --” and I dropped an eyeball into my cup of tea. I glared down at the spectacle, which had just distinctly exposed the magnitude of my boredom and frustration. _Abort mission. Abort._

I could feel his eyes boring in to me. If only I knew how to fool him as easily as everyone else.  
  
“Tea?” he asks, and takes a seat across from me, clearing his throat. He is immensely tense. Is this what we are now -- the time apart rendering us unfamiliar? I could not bear it if we had lost the domesticity and comfort of our previous life . . . which I had unfortunately taken great pains to destroy.

"So . . . the big question. The best man." John says suddenly, and a jolt courses through my nerve endings. _Oh please, Christ. Do not let this be what I am assuming it to be._

"The best man?" I have gotten quite skilled at crafting the air of indifference on spot, while the words were sitting like lead on my chest.

"What do you think?" His voice is so quiet, insecure. I know rejecting such an offer would crush him. I know accepting such an offer would crush me . . .

"Billy Kincaid."

“. . . Sorry?”

"Billy Kincaid, the Camden garrotter. Best man I ever knew. Vast contributions to charity never disclosed. Personally managed to save three hospitals from closure and ran the best and safest children’s homes in North England. Of course, every now and again there’d be some garrottings, but… stacking up the lives saved against the garrottings, on balance, I’d say-"

"At my wedding!" He cut in sharply. "For _me_. I need a best man… and maybe not a garroter."

"Oh." I replied dry-lipped, heart pounding in my throat. _Think, think, isn’t that what you’re good for?_ "Gavin."

"Who?" He’s getting proper angry with me now. I am a trapped animal, and can foresee no method of escape from this conversation that is the last conversation I wanted to have on this day alone with him.

"Gavin Lestrade, he’s . . . a man, and good at it." Stalling. He knows I am entirely giving him the run around and I am drowning where I stand here.

"It’s Greg." John is looking upon me incredulously now "and he’s not my best man."

"Ooooh, Mike Stamford. I see." _Nonchalant – play nonchalant when you’re grasping at disintegrating straws here for fucks sakes as you know damn well this maze only has dead ends_ \-- "Yes he’s nice . . . but I’m not sure he can cope with --”

"Yeah Mike’s great!" John is all but shouting at me now. All bets are off. He is quite confident I am not this dense, and irate that I would pretend so. "But he’s not my best friend."

That look.  
In any other context, I would assume he was courting me. But this was mounting up to be a question he was asking of me that I felt I could not possibly perform – could not stand there at one of those horrid, ritualistic and false events of unity as I watched him – _my John_ – getting handed off to another. Is that what he was asking of me, really? Was **he** truly that dense?

"The biggest and most important day of my life-"

“Ehhhh . . .” I could not even withhold my skepticism and disgust. _Oh, come now – I like to think we had more going on than that before she came along . . . like meeting me, perhaps?_

"No it is." John is sitting there jabbing a finger at me, holding me prisoner in this conversation that I hate, I hate, I hate . . .

"There are two people, that I love, and care about, most in the world."

A boulder in my throat. _Keep it together. Keep it together, you fool._

"Yes."

“Mary Morstan . . .” _I wish he would stop looking at me like that._

"Yes?"

"And…" _Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump . . ._ "you."

Broken.  
My mind has just temporarily broken.  
The lump in my throat throttling me where I stand, and this man that I love more than anything I have ever previously laid eyes on, laying himself bare in the most unjust manner possible. How he could come in here, throw all of this in my face in an attempt to gain my alliance on the matter – to coerce me into relinquishing my primary position in his life to allow another to slide in beside him.Without a doubt he has no concept of the magnitude of what he means to me, but hearing exactly what I mean to him . . . I was not prepared for the whirlwind of emotion it uncaged within me. I was at an impasse, and again, had to consider what was more important to me. My happiness, or his.

I never realized how long I stood there, consumed in my inner turmoil, until his voice broke my reverie:

"Sherlock?"

For the first time in my life, I have nothing to say.

This past month I was encased in a state of horror, worrying that I had lost him for good – that all we had grown together had been besmirched by my leaving, and would never mend again. To lose him would be unforgivable. I had been living on needles, as if my entire future was a tapestry coming undone.

Now here he was, easing my mind and wrecking it all at once: reassuring me how utterly irreplaceable I am to his existence, and yet asking of me the one thing I am certain I could never willingly do. Knowing the extent of what we mean to each other, and yet asking me to give him away.

My mind palace was failing me, as the two warring thoughts were akin to two snakes engulfing one another’s tail – cyclical and futile.

He still loves me.

_As much as her?_

To reject his request could mean losing him for good. To accept it could mean losing my sanity. I cannot lose him, and I cannot let him go. Saying yes means everything to him, yet would devastate me. Saying no would devastate him . . .

But I have longed to have him near me again; unsure of if we shall ever mend. Now here he is, expressing how unwaveringly vital I am to his life. His best. His **best** , when I was certain he hated me . . .  
  
“Y-you mean . . .”

"Yes."

"I’m your … best . . ."

"Man."

"Friend?" I nearly choked on the word, as the past few weeks bore down on me in a torrent of misery. Days, nights, wondering if I would ever have him sitting in that chair again – staring at it like the spectre it was, of a life that used to be . . . how loneliness sat upon my shoulders from the first opening of my eyes to the final closing.

It was more than I could have hoped for, though I dared to want more. To know I was still so valuable to him after everything I had wrought upon him . . . it was the first time that I felt I could breathe the air without a struggle since my return.

"Of course you are." John gently says. "Of course. You’re my best friend."

_Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry._

Without thinking, I raised the mug to my mouth as a distraction and took a gulp.

"How’s that?" He asked, bemused.

I spit the eye back into the mug, almost glad for it – I would rather that than face the burden of allowing myself to weep before him. It came too close this time.  
  
“Surprisingly okay.”  
  
It was not ok. Nothing would be ok, but that is the selfishness within me talking. The terror of having cut my bind to him was over; here he was, affirming his love for me – and as euphoric an experience it had been, it was also rather melancholy.

Best friend.

I loved and resented the title.

I was once again confirmed as an essential part of his life, but also confirmed to perform the one task that had seemed to erupt from my nightmares. To let go of John, and let someone else have him. I had to remind myself of my one solid rule about John, for the complexity of my mind often runs me ragged with scenarios, entitlements, arguments, counter-arguments. I can sometimes trick myself into thinking that he belongs to me.  
  
Above all else, John is important – and more important than I. He is the most important, always. And if I suffer for his happiness, then I must – for nothing matters more than that. I shan’t meddle for my own benefit, as much as this all shall ruin me. For above all else, I dearly love John Watson.

  
And John must be happy again.

 

* * *

 

_Oh, misery,_   
_misery . . ._   
_what’s going to become of me?_

 

* * *

  
It was the first time, you know.  
The first time we just hung out alone casually since his return.  
I had popped over to ask him to be my best man in private – for Christ knows how his reaction was going to pan out, and it did prove to be bizarre. Being out on the field studying and solving cases was one thing. Being alone to spend the evening in leisure as friends, well . . . that really had not been permitted to happen since his return.  
I know that sounds crazy -- I feel a proper dick about it.

  
But he did kind of fake his own death for two years, and yeah. That may have been a tiny smidgen too difficult for me to forgive. Still is, I think. By rights I might still owe him a couple hundred head butts in the face – and I would still be doing the pissed off bit but Christ.  
  
He’s back.  
  
I missed his presence and now that it’s around, I’m drawn. Getting to listen to him ramble, or going into the apartment to the sound of a mewling violin. I savour that, I won’t bullshit it. And I’d like to be mad, but thing is I can see that he’s so fucking lonely right now. And I hate how he refuses to show even some inkling of admittance to that – that he’s –

that I, am so God damn grateful that he is alive, and I can’t help that this palpable chemistry chokes everybody in the room, especially me, even in front of my fiancée – he knows it, I know it – I know who he really is . . . I _think_. 

  
And he just pretends that he is not the human I have already glimpsed  – quite rarely in fact, but – **but** \--  
But I’m drunk.  
I’m drunk, I’m drunk I’m --  
This might be my only shot at getting Sherlock drunk. Ever.

So I poured a couple shots in his beer. I would’ve thought about this, you know, thought this through a little better, but – the whole – drunk thing. And now I was starting to realize the repercussions of what a drunk Sherlock really meant. The man had no inhibitions already. And drunk, he was . . . well . . .

“A fairy? Am I to be insulted?” Sherlock snorted at the man before him as I sat at the table, hoping this was not headed where I thought it was headed – though it most certainly was. I had trouble keeping people from wanting to crush him while he was sober. “Well then, yes – but I believe I’m the most attractive individual that shall speak to you all night, am I not?”

My hand might have become permanently attached to my face in an eternal face-palm.

“Look at you – leather jacket, fair signs of wear and aging, so distinctly not the best you have to offer I hope – plunging neck line on a white t-shirt suggests you might be here looking for a sort like me. Strong scent of cologne indicating you want to attract a mate but not enough to shower, as you have utilized the scent as a substitute to bathing and . . .” Sherlock leaned forward, picking something off the guy’s shirt and rubbing it between his fingers. He lifted them to his nostrils and made a face.

“Right. Ash upon your jacket. Masking the smell of this unsavoury habit as well. Christ. Mayfair king size? No self-respecting man would suck on that rubbish.” I tried not to spit out my drink with laughter. I failed. “No sir, you’ll not be leaving here with company tonight – and don’t try to tell me otherwise, because I know women, and I know ash, and this is the cigarette of a lonely man.” He leaned back, inspecting how his work had sunk in, and the gentleman looked both bewildered and insulted. Sherlock grinned smugly before throwing his hands out and declaring:

“I know ash!” He gesticulated to himself vehemently. He started jabbing the brute upon the chest, punctuating each word: “Don’t, you, tell, me, I, don’t.”

I had a brief spasm of panic at the flash of indignation that encompassed the man’s angry ape visage, jumping up as he swung for Sherlock’s face – who dipped out of the way. I honestly believe he was just wavering on his feet judging by the pleased look of surprise he wore when he righted himself. I leapt into the situation to bring the awkward scene to an end, grappling Sherlock and yanking him out of reach. “Oh! Alright, enough – come on, then-”

 “Ash.” Sherlock jabbed a finger pointedly back at the man. “I know Ash.”

 

* * *

 

We had barely just made it home, flopping haphazardly onto the floor of the living room on our backs, side by side while watching the room spinning. He moaned and put an arm over his eyes.

“The room . . . tell it to settle down and stop that, it cannot logically be moving . . .” His other hand was grasping upwards, clasping nothingness in his empty palm until he flung an arm out toward me. He tugged clumsily on my sleeve, groaning.

“Bloody hell. This is what this is about anyway, isn’t it, bachelor parties.”

“Come again?”  
  
“Bachelor parties. The great sign off before the – before the whole ruddy world changes and ends or does . . . whatever the world does when you go.” His other arm left his face and flopped down by his side dejectedly. I watched him with a tentative fascination, wondering where this was going – or where it originated.  
  
“I’m sorry, where is this coming from?”

“You’re leaving me, aren’t you?” He said it with such clarity, staring up at the ceiling with such profound sadness that I was instantly numbed by the chill it settled over my heart. I find the moment . . . difficult to articulate. While obviously intended as jest, his pale eyes finally turned to me and exposed a breed of stinging morose unseen by me in all my days – a ghost of nostalgia, a bitter sweetness in those eyes which were usually reserved for cold, dead calculations.

I realized then that there was human in them when they fell upon me. There was a kind of tenderness and pain that stung me to witness – so strange to see him so vulnerable. His eyes did not hold me long, it seemed to harm him to linger on my eyes, and he rolled onto his stomach, folding his arms into a pillow for his chin and mouth. He stared drunkenly up at the window into the London air, as a drowning animal might from their cage. “And this place shall be rendered a dwelling space. Nothing more.”  
  
“Ay now!” I slurred, still shaken to my core by that haunted look that had consumed his face. It was sobering. “What would you have called this place before then?”  
  
“With you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
His gaze stole away from the window to capture mine again, brimming with an aching melancholy.  
  
“Home.”

A hot barb of sorrow darted my insides. How could he look at me like this? How could he have remained so guarded before he left, turned my life into chaos, and returned from the dead so defenseless and open to me? It was all I had ever wanted. And I knew exactly what he meant. Home had always been where he was. But here we were, in this fucked up situation, because he couldn’t tell me in the two years that I’d suffered without him that he wasn’t dead.

“I know how you feel.” I murmured, tight-lipped. “I lived here without you, too.” My eyes clouded over with the dejection of that memory, those horrid days and feelings . . .

“I shall never be redeemed in your eyes for that, I see . . .”

“You **left** me!” I sputtered defiantly. “You deserted me with nothing more than a cell phone suicide note! Left me thinking you had offed yourself, you selfish--”

“John, please . . .”  
  
“Oh does this tire you? Is time apart from me proving difficult, after I suffered through two years of-”

“Have you completely neglected to consider that within the confines of those two years I was in fact alive as well, and having trouble enjoying it myself?”  
  
“You. Knew. Where I was.” I spat. “A call. A letter. A fucking _text message_. Hmm? Nothing? I thought you were in the **ground** for Christ’s sakes!”

“John-”

“Things have changed – and you’ve the gall to come back here resenting that, even after abandoning me here.”

“I didn’t _want_ to . . .” There was a tremble to his voice, and it was so quiet and mild – so unlike him that my eyes darted to glance at him worriedly. His face was once more buried in his folded arms, tilted away from me so that all I stared upon were silk ebony curls snatching skeins of moonlight. It took everything in my power to still my hand, resist touching them. Had I ever heard him sound so small and helpless?

“What do you mean by that.” I muttered, finally breaking the silence with curiosity consuming me. Another blanket of silence carpeted the room, with only my impatient breathing convincing me that I was awake and this was really happening. My brow furrowed at his silence. “Sherlock.”

Nothing.

I put my hand out toward the curls then squeezed my fist hard enough to feel the nails bite my palm in resistance to the urge. Even catering to so small a desire could change everything. I sought out his shoulder instead, clasping it assuredly.  
  
“Sherlock.”  
  
He stirred mildly.

“Mmm? Umm wk.”

“Sherlock?”  
  
“M’wake!” He batted a hand at my touch, sitting up haphazardly and scrubbing at his eyes.

“Did you just pass out on the floor? Good God. Must’ve given you more than I thought . . .”

“Innnnknew it.” He slurred sleepily, coming back to himself while wiping a hand over his face. “I knew I tasted liquor. But I let you do it.”

I gave him a hard look of bewilderment.

“Come again?”

“Well I knew if you were getting me drunk, there had to be a reason.” He smirked cheekily, and I blinked wide-eyed. Bloody hell. Am I just being cocky because I’m drunk, or is Sherlock Holmes actually flirting with me?

“Am I . . . am I missing something? I just – I don’t --”

“Dancing.” He clapped, and my brows tried to mate with my hairline.

“I’m finding it extremely difficult to follow you and am confident I’ve had more to drink.”

“Nonsense, lets – lets – I mean really, when will we ever – do this again.” He chuckled. “I mean be here. By ourselves. Ever again.”  
  
“Probably tomorrow?”

He took my hand in his, warm porcelain tugging me to my feet, and pulled me to him close. His breath was sweet, his unique and spicy scent mingling with the rare accent of alcohol. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, electrified by his proximity.

“Spin me.” He demanded cordially, and I tried not to laugh as he began turning in my arms. I failed miserably and exploded when he went down hard.

“Jesus, Sherlock -- ”

“I meant for that.” He was tossing a hand of dismissal in the air roughly. “I meant for that.” And he pulled me down to the floor with him. “Clearly you – you’re too drunk to be at this, I mean -- you could get hurt -- ”

“Oh is that so? I think you’re just too drunk to stand.”

“Plan B. Follow me.” He ordered, crawling to the door and with a few attempts, successfully got it open. He began wriggling through the doorway and I followed suit.

“Where are we going?”

“We’ll --” and my heart fluttered at the rare, giddy giggle that bubbled forth from his lips. “We’re going to crawl down – sneak down the stairs, and -- ” at that he struck his elbow roughly on the first step and nearly lurched down them.

“Bloody Christ, Sherlock, mind!--” I grabbed at his shirt while he tittered, forcing me to chase him on my elbows down the stairs as he let himself slide from step to step. Once he reached the bottom, he turned himself about, and we were then huddled face-to-face in secret council.

“We, are going to startle Mrs. Hudson awake by -- you -- ”

He closed his eyes for a long moment and furrowed his brow deeply, as if being swept by a tide of drunkenness or sickness, and groaned deep in his throat as his forehead found my chest.

“I can’t –- I just –- I'm just -- just, hold me.” My eyes burst open to the size of saucers, and my body had an instinctual reaction before my mind, taking him in and cradling him to my chest. My mind was reeling with worry: _you shouldn’t be at this. You’re really enjoying it too much, and it feels too fucking right to hold him like this._

“Don’t leave me. Alright?” he muffled into my shirt, and it was such a sweet moment. I felt like I was sheltering him from the world, and I wanted to. It had always been my job.

“I won’t.” I breathed, partially laughing at the absurdity of it, but not committing myself to its humour. I had always wanted to do this; to have him permit me to hold him peacefully, to soothe the restless mind and body of this man I so fondly loved. He sounded so small and alone – and what else could I tell him? I could not fool myself into thinking that I would ever truly leave him – even Mary knew better than that. I felt guilt as I found myself falling into old habits – wanting more, more, more of him. I always wanted more of him, as if consumed by the licking tongue of fire. I was not happy until he cindered me into dust – the stupid moth that dies happily in flame, never learning once burnt. I knew I would be with him for life. I could feel my pulse betraying me at the closeness of him. It was as if my skin was static, and I was helpless at the mercy of him.

“You . . . you’re my Sam.” He muttered sleepily, beginning to doze off. “You’re my Samwise Gamgee.” I turned my head away, eyes pinched tight and lifting a fist to my mouth around him as I swallowed down shudders of laughter. Now I was committed to how funny this was. I should probably be writing this stuff down, and if it did not twist my heart so, I might have had enough bastard in me to do it. But he was so God damn vulnerable, and I knew I might never hear or see him like this again. I figured I’d just enjoy it while it lasted.

“Goodnight Frodo.” I choked, but he was already snoring. We stayed like that, drifting in and out of consciousness and foolish conversations on the stairs ‘till Mrs. Hudson turned the tables and startled **us** awake, announcing to our shared embarrassment that we’d only been out for two hours.

I realized with all of London at our disposal, our only desire was to hole ourselves up in 221B Baker Street, bathing in the luxury of one another’s long anticipated company. All that city, and all we wanted was each other and that little apartment. Our nest.

This was to be my bachelor party, and it was feeling more akin to a date.

For the first time since I had become engaged to Mary, I was scared and uncertain. My anger at Sherlock had aided in my ability to think straight; to use my animosity toward him to steer myself toward this path indefinitely.

After tonight, I was not so sure anymore.

I was terrified to learn that despite the time, distance, animosity, the woman – nothing had really changed.

I still loved Sherlock Holmes.

My path had grown many forks, and old habits die hard.

* * *

 

 


End file.
